The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

climb-down \climb-down\ n.
   1. a retraction of a previously held position.

   Syn: withdrawal, backdown.
        [WordNet 1.5]

   Grand climacteric or Great climacteric, the sixty-third
      year of human life.
      [1913 Webster]

            I should hardly yield my rigid fibers to be
            regenerated by them; nor begin, in my grand
            climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to
            stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental sounds
            of their barbarous metaphysics.       --Burke.
      [1913 Webster]